(Geneva, September 25, 2018) ­– Alkarama has requested the urgent intervention of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) following the abduction of 31-year-old Egyptian citizen Magdy Ez Eldin by members of the National Security Forces.

On August 7, 2018, Ez Eldin was playing football with his colleagues in El Qalg Village in the Qalyubia Governorate, north of Cairo. At around 12.15 p.m., the playing field was surrounded by members of the National Security Forces dressed in civilian clothes along with soldiers wearing military uniforms. The officers interrogated all those present at the playing field, before proceeding to beat Ez Eldin and drag him across the ground. The National Security Forces then blindfolded him and took him to an unknown location, without providing any explanation. His family has tried to locate him, including by filing a complaint with the Public Prosecutor in Qalyubia, but to no avail.

Ez Eldin’s enforced disappearance is part of a larger systematic practice in Egypt that has become commonplace since the military takeover in 2013. Not only does this practice amount to a crime against humanity when used in a widespread or systematic manner, but it also makes victims vulnerable to other serious human rights violations, such as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Fearing for Ez Eldin’s safety, Alkarama requested the urgent intervention of the WGEID to urge the Egyptian authorities to release him or, at the very least, to bring him under the protection of the law and inform his family of his fate and whereabouts.